Unverified Voracity Says Hello, Old Friend

I'm still catching up after spending large chunks of the weekend away from precious internet access, so forgive if some of this is old.

Back like it never happened. So, yeah, Michigan might not be through with Gradys yet:

As Grady continues to evaluate his options, one of them is playing for the Michigan football team. He has spoken with the U-M staff regarding the opportunity. Grady, a 5-foot-10 standout running back/receiver in high school at East Grand Rapids, is considering a number of basketball and football options.

While the Free Press article above indicates Grady is still evaluating his options, a previously reliable source indicates this is a done deal and Grady will not be transferring.

As we've all learned from the Greg Paulus fiasco, players don't use up eligibility in any sport they're not actually playing and have a five-year period before they're ineligible, so Grady would be the functional equivalent of a redshirt sophomore if he was to join the team: three years to play three.

Grady's quick as hell and was a legitimate football prospect coming out of high school, so he could be of some use. No one has put a stranglehold on the slot position and the starting tailback job will be wide open next fall. Also maybe he can catch punts.

Nothing to see here. I really wish this wasn't cause to play officer Barbrady, but even if this is Terrelle Pryor (and it very probably is)…

The football player received a special, discounted hotel rate and free food while visiting Ohio State.

On Aug. 21, OSU declared the athlete ineligible and filed a violation report with the NCAA. He never missed a game, though. He paid back $158 for his extra benefits, and the NCAA restored his eligibility. He was a freshman at Ohio State last year. He was recruited by quarterbacks coach Joe Daniels.

…it's a minor NCAA violation that's been handled already. This, though fun, is also pointless to get excited about:

Since 2000, Ohio State has reported to the NCAA more than 375 violations -- the most of any of the 69 Football Bowl Subdivision schools that provided documents to The Dispatch through public-records requests. Most infractions were minor -- a coach called a recruit too many times, for example. Others, however, left athletes benched, fined or at least embarrassed.

If the NCAA hasn't deigned to slap Lane Kiffin's wrist, this won't bring any additional scrutiny. Especially since the list of violations is full of stuff like "player mentions ice cream shop where she worked" and—seriously—"hockey players sneak into Nickelback concert."

But the larger point in the Dispatch report is a good one: many schools now use any means possible to avoid or make useless FOIA requests by citing a federal law designed to prevent the public disclosure of student grades. An example:

We asked the eight Ohio schools eligible for the Bowl Championship Series for the list of people who flew on university airplanes to away football games. These records are used by the NCAA to determine whether boosters (people who give money to the university and whose actions are scrutinized) fly with the team.

Kent State University sent the entire list, with no names removed. Three schools blackened out the names of students. Four removed the names of students and some nonstudents.

Others just make it ridiculously costly. This includes Michigan, which asked for $850 to fulfill the Dispatch's FOIA request. Only Maryland's hilarious demand for over $35,000 beat that.

Urgh? Odd that Tony Barnhart is the guy to report on this change in the BCS selection process:

In past contracts if the Rose Bowl lost one of its traditional partners, the Big Ten or Pac-10 champ, to the BCS championship game, it could simply fill with another Big Ten or Pac-10 team that qualified. That’s how a 9-3 Illinois team got to Pasadena two years ago.

But in the new contract, I’m told, there is an interesting clause: The first time in the deal that the Rose loses one of its champions to the BCS title game, that opening will be automatically filled by a Coalition (non-BCS conference) team if one has qualified.

Barnhart interprets this as an attempt to not get sued, and okay maybe it is but why does the Rose Bowl get stuck with an automatic mid-major slot instead of losing its special ability to pick a totally undeserving Big Ten team? That seems like swinging the pendulum too far in the other direction.

After getting over the initial revulsion at the thought of Boise State in the Rose Bowl, though, I'm not too put out: better that than a barely-qualified* Big Ten team like Illinois leaping into the BCS, embarrassing itself, and giving the rest of the conference harder matchups in their bowl games. At least some part of the Big Ten's recent bowl struggles is due to the conference almost always getting a second team into the BCS whether it deserves it or not.

*(Literally: IIRC, there was great worry that year because Illinois needed an extremely friendly set of final-week results to even get itself into the top 14 of the BCS rankings.)

Ends to excellent season. The men's golf team made a late surge to squeeze into the top eight at the national championships, then won their first round of match play before losing a "heartbreaker" to Texas A&M in the semifinal. Michigan's top player, the spectacularly-named Lion Kim, is but a sophomore, so future success is a possibility.

Softball, meanwhile, won against Alabama but lost 1-0 against Florida and 7-5 against Georgia to exit the WCWS around 5th or 6th place. At least they're not Ohio State's baseball team, which managed to lose 24-8 and 37-6 this weekend. Even stranger: in between those two games they won twice.

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Is anyone else confused by the whole Grady thing?? If he wants to play football great, but why not stick with basketball as well?? The starting PG spot is available. If he wanted to play football why didn't he say that from the beginning?? Are his offers to play hoop slim so he's backpedalling?? Very bizarre situation.

I don't think that spot in the Rose Bowl would be "automatic" for a mid-major- Barnhart specified "if one has qualified." Not quite sure what counts as "qualified," but I imagine he's referring to the top-14 ranking requirement.

So, I what I take from that is if the top mid-major team is ranked, say, 23rd, they won't be getting that spot in the Rose Bowl.

Hey Rose Bowl haters! Want to guarantee second tier status for the RB in a certain year? Here's your new rule!

In reality, while I don't think there are any actual RB haters, there may as well be based on this idiotic decision. ANY B10 team in the RB is more attractive to both the RB, TV and most fans than any future Boise or Utah. Remember that this hypothetical team would be the SECOND non-BCS conference team in a BCS game that year. So if your already not excited by the presence of lower tier schools (go ahead and flame "BCS doesn't matter because Utah/Bama and Boise/OK" people), hey we've got a second unattractive BCS game for you to watch!

"We can't overestimate the value of computers: yes they are great for playing games and forwarding funny emails, but real business is done on paper. Write that down."

2 of those 3 games were worth watching (all 3 if you enjoyed watching Colt Brennan die). It's all relative anyway, since the BCS championship game has become the only thing that seems to matter to people.

It has made most of the other major bowls irrelevant. Bama and Ok were disappointed to be in those bowls and thus it is extremely hard to get up for a game against a team you know you should beat. Then play against a team with something to prove and voila: upset city. But this recent decision will accentuate that trend, and give people even more of rationale to say that the non-BCS schools are as good. Which is not true.

"We can't overestimate the value of computers: yes they are great for playing games and forwarding funny emails, but real business is done on paper. Write that down."

Well, pre-BCS, why should a 5th ranked or lower team bother playing when they aren't going to win the title anyways? (I don't know the lowest ranking for a team, before bowls, that won a title after playing their bowl game, but I doubt it's below 4.) There are issues with the BCS, but this isn't really one of them.

And if Bama couldn't be excited to play in a BCS bowl a year after going 6-6, they suck. The end.

How was Oklahoma "disappointed?" It wasn't like they were about to play for the national title if they had won the Big XII title game. Oh, that's right. THEY WON the Big XII title game. They went to the bowl game they were slotted for as conference champion. They then proceeded to lose.

After losing to Texas Tech, you're telling me Oklahoma was able to get up for the Big XII title game against Nebraska, but then weren't ready for the Fiesta Bowl? I didn't realize Boise State magically made teams play flat.

College football is not like pro football. In the NFL, each team is essentially equal. Some teams like Pittsburgh or Dallas have a lot of tradition, but the teams have an even playing field.

College football is not this way, like it or not. People outside of Idaho (do people live there?) don't give a shit about Boise St so this won't change soon. I don't want to see them in a major bowl game. I watched Utah-Bama because we played Utah and I hate Alabama. Had it been different, I wouldn't have watched the game.

I get the playoff argument saying that a mid-major should get a chance to win the title. But Utah wasn't in the Championship game. The title game is to crown a champion, the other bowls are for fun. I advocate leaving that to the big dogs.

Interesting that Hawaii is determined to be "over-rated" but Boise St is deemed to have no business winning their game because of "trick plays"? I don't get it - was there an abuse of the rules that Boise St snuck past the under-achieving (as opposed to over-rated) Sooners? Nine times out of ten, one would expect UM to beat Toledo, too.

too." Sure, but the difference is that no one would ever purposefully schedule a 13-0 Toledo team in a BCS game if they had a choice. And they would be right, because Toledo is not as good as M. Just as Boise is not as good as OK.

I'm not saying they didn't deserve to win, they did. But they and their conferences are not as good as the BCS conferences, and the forced affirmative action of promoting them into the BCS games is what I resent.

"We can't overestimate the value of computers: yes they are great for playing games and forwarding funny emails, but real business is done on paper. Write that down."

I did not say that they did not deserve to win. I said that they had no business being in that game. They clearly played a fantastic game and deserved to win as much as Oklahoma did. I'd say that that game and Vince Young vs. USC tie for the best games in the new centurey. Not Appy St.. Oh please, not them.

Boise DOMINATED the first 40 minutes of that game and led 28-10 with 5 minutes left in the 3rd. Total yardage was close (within 30 yards). Both teams had multiple turnovers (Boise 3 and OU 4). Boise was able to do what non-BCS teams HAVE to do to have a chance: not get destroyed on the lines. I think Boise wins 4 out of 10 times that game is played and maybe 5.

I don't know how anyone could have watched that game and state Boise would win 1 out of 10 times.

that was just one game. Michigan got into the Rose Bowl after the 2006 season using that same (old) rule, and our fanbase was peeved enough with that (not getting to face OSU again in the NC game)! Imagine if a non-BCS team had gone to the Rose Bowl that year instead of UM - we would've been incensed! (Obviously, we also would have been saved another beatdown at the hands of USC, but...)

Maybe I've missed it, but I don't see that. I see the ruling as being if a big ten/pac 10 team goes on to the title game, if a non-bcs school has qualified for the BCS they automaticly get shipped to the rose bowl. It seems that this would take place before the other bowls choose their match-ups and thus no other non-bcs conference school would already have been picked for a BCS bowl.

The Rose Bowl clause was probably added because the other bowls trying to stick the RB with the non-BCS team for once so they won't be stuck with them all the time. The Rose Bowl is the only BCS bowl that gets auto-assigned two league champs, and in the years the RB loses a team to the championship game they get one of the first two at-large picks and can leave the non-BCS team for some other poor sucker. I still don't know how the Rose Bowl agreed to this though, I would think that its representatives from the Big Ten and Pac 10 would throw a fit until it was removed.

I watched him play on many occasions in highschool. very speedy and shifty. more of an offensive threat than defensive. has the ability to make plays in open field. then again that was all highschool. and it looks like he hasnt added much size. lets see if the Barwis method can fix that.

"hockey players sneak into Nickelback concert." - Good God, they might as well strip him of his eligibility right now! Such insanity should not go unpunished!

As for the Rose Bowl clause - I think it is fine. Sure, would it be nice to keep only conference champions? Sure. But over the past few years (outside of crappy Hawaii), most of the non-BCS teams to make the BCS were top-notch programs that were at least as good as the champions from the Big East and ACC. I would much rather see Utah battle USC than another Illinois/USC debacle. Let some other team get crushed by USC at home for once.